I called on Saturday at the Office in St. Mary Axe--all uncertainty
about the vessel's sailing again for Leghorn--it could not sail before
the middle of the month--and only then _if_ &c. But if I would leave
my card &c. &c.
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, September 17, 1845.]
I write one word just to say that it is all over with Pisa; which was
a probable evil when I wrote last, and which I foresaw from the
beginning--being a prophetess, you know. I cannot tell you now how it
has all happened--_only do not blame me_, for I have kept my ground to
the last, and only yield when Mr. Kenyon and all the world see that
there is no standing. I am ashamed almost of having put so much
earnestness into a personal matter--and I spoke face to face and quite
firmly--so as to pass with my sisters for the 'bravest person in the
house' without contestation.
Sometimes it seems to me as if it _could not_ end so--I mean, that the
responsibility of such a negative must be reconsidered ... and you see
how Mr. Kenyon writes to me. Still, as the matter lies, ... no Pisa!
And, as I said before, my prophetic instincts are not likely to fail,
such as they have been from the beginning.
If you wish to come, it must not be until Saturday at soonest. I have
a headache and am weary at heart with all this vexation--and besides
there is no haste now: and when you do come, _if you do_, I will trust
to you not to recur to one subject, which must lie where it fell ...
must! I had begun to write to you on Saturday, to say how I had
forgotten to give you your MSS. which were lying ready for you ... the
_Hood_ poems. Would it not be desirable that you made haste to see
them through the press, and went abroad with your Roman friends at
once, to try to get rid of that uneasiness in the head? Do think of
it--and more than think.
For me, you are not to fancy me unwell. Only, not to be worn a little
with the last week's turmoil, were impossible--and Mr. Kenyon said to
me yesterday that he quite wondered how I could bear it at all, do
anything reasonable at all, and confine my misdoings to sending
letters addressed to him at Brighton, when he was at Dover! If
anything changes, you shall hear from--